September 16, 2011

Fact-Checking The Trib's Editorial Cartoon

Solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week left taxpayers on the hook for more than half-a-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees and put 1,100 out of work. And it's the latest case study in the predictable failure of Obamanomics -- a "green" beneficiary of crony capitalism, unviable even when subsidized by a government trying to pick winners.

Yea...about those loan guarantees. You could guess from the braintrust's editorial that Solyndra sent an email to Van Jones in the White House who then personally rubber stamped a $500 million loan guarantee to help out some Obama campaign contributors.

22 comments:

Solyndra scandal unraveling Obama's credibilityBy: Examiner Editorial | 09/14/11 8:05 PM"If you guys think this is a bad idea, I need to unwind the W[est] W[ing] QUICKLY," so said Vice President Biden's then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain in an email about President Obama's impending $535 million loan guarantee to California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, on March 7, 2009. In fact, some officials in the Obama administration thought the Solyndra loan was a lousy idea. "This deal is NOT ready for prime time," a White House budget analyst emailed three days later.Documents made public Wednesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee show why: An Energy Department analysis of Solyndra's business model performed two years ago predicted that the firm would run out of money in September 2011. But that fact was ignored by the president and his political advisers who wanted a "green jobs" photo op, no matter the cost. The result was, as an Energy Department analyst said in another email, "given the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra, we don't have time to change the model."

But while career staffers at Energy were trying to stop the Solyndra loan, Obama appointees in the White House were determined to push it through as fast as possible. An assistant to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked in yet another email if "there is anything we can help speed along on [the Office of Management and Budget] side." And sped along the Solyndra loan was, as the firm received half a billion dollars under the Obama economic stimulus program funds. Unfortunately for taxpayers, just as officials at the Energy Department predicted, Solyndra did run out of money earlier this month, bankruptcy followed, and 1,100 green jobs vanished.

Dense clouds of toxic smoke are billowing from these Solyndra emails. If this is the level of due diligence the Obama administration performed on the president's signature green-job investment, nobody should be surprised that voters question the legitimacy of his other massive spending programs. This is the kind of malfeasance that Obama cannot afford to suffer right now. The Democratic polling firm Third Way released a memo this week showing that 78 percent of "switchers" (Obama voters who voted Republican in 2010) believe Democrats are not "responsible with taxpayer dollars."

How have Obama and his appointees responded to Solyndra's failure? The same way they respond to every problem: They've obstructed the congressional investigation so vigorously that a congressional subpoena had to be issued to obtain important documents. They've sought to distract attention away from it with stunts like Biden's White House announcement yesterday of "new anti-waste and fraud" measures for Medicaid that he claimed would save $2 billion. And -- surprise! -- they've blamed President Bush. At yesterday's Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, DOE loan chief Jonathan Silver argued that the Solyndra loan initiative was begun by the Bush administration. In fact, less than two weeks before Bush left office, the Energy Department's credit committee unanimously decided not to fund Solyndra. By the way, the Energy Department announced another $1.2 billion in solar-firm loans this week. It appears the only way to end this fraud on the taxpayers is to vote Obama out of office.

Winding down, are there public health costs associated with burning oil, coal and natural gas, and are those costs factored into the price of oil, coal and natural gas? Do, in fact, the oil, coal and natural gas companies receive billions of dollars in subsidies rather than being told to pay into a fund that would cover the costs of illnesses caused or worsened by their products?

Billions??? Yes 4....ck bp/exxon deepwater rig "thunder horse" when it is on line and producing....250k barrels/day...you figured it out..big bucks...just one rig...and we still import alot of oil. Just sayin

Cut them....all of them... Obama can do "soly" seven more times...500m X 7 = 3.5b...... Chump change in the grand scheme for the big oil companies....then BHO can pick other losers...let the market work ...sorting winners and losers.

this from a news servive:President Obama on Monday asked Congress to end subsidies for all oil and gas companies, which could save the government more than $4 billion a year, to help pay for his jobs bill. It’s a shift from recent Democratic efforts to end tax breaks for just the five major oil companies.

The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department's credit committee had voted against offering a loan commitment to Solyndra.

Even after Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, analysts in the Energy Department and in the Office of Management and Budget were repeatedly questioning the wisdom of the loan. In one exchange, an Energy official wrote of "a major outstanding issue" -- namely, that Solyndra's numbers showed it would run out of cash in September 2011.

There was also concern about the high-risk nature of the project. Internally, the Office of Management and Budget wrote that "the risk rating for the project sponsor [Solyndra] … seems high." Outside analysts had warned for months that the company might not be a sound investment....

"It's very difficult to perceive a company with a model that says, well, I can build something for six dollars and sell it for three dollars," Lynch said. "Those numbers don't generally work. You don't want to lose three dollars for every unit you make."

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONBREAKING: A POWER LINE DC BUREAU EXCLUSIVE! “OPERATION CHAOS” EXPOSED!!Power Line’s Washington Bureau has obtained a secret recording of the latest double-secret central committee meeting of Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos.” The thick cigar smoke in the room degraded the recording quality, and our voice-print analysis software can’t confirm that the Ouija board pronouncements really are the voice of the late Lee Atwater, but we can confirm the rest of the participants. We pick up right from the opening puff:

Rush: Gentlemen, I’m really starting to worry that our plan of placing our hand-picked, CIA-groomed Manchurian candidate Obama in the White House to unravel liberalism from within is working too well and too fast. We’re in danger of repeating 1968, when, having failed to keep Bobby Kennedy in the cabinet and not foreseeing that that nobody Gene McCarthy would knock out LBJ, we almost blew the election when the Democrats changed horses.

Karl: Yeah, but at least we still have Hillary locked safely away in the Cabinet. Surely she needs to head off to Libya or somewhere for the next few months? And Russ Feingold and Howard Dean are total wimps and won’t dare step forward to challenge our guy.

Roger: Shut up, Rove. You’re part of the problem here. Your American Crossroads spent too much on the two House special elections this week, turning them into blowouts. I thought we agreed that we only wanted very narrow wins so as not to alarm the Democrats too much. Now they’re starting to panic for real, and look around for a way to get Obama out without upsetting black voters and starting a civil war inside the Democratic Party.

Rupert: Yes, but don’t worry my trusty lieutenant. Carville is moving to stanch the damage with his wild ideas of having Obama purge his staff and Eric Holder indict bankers. Clearly our agent Mary Matalin’s wiles are finally starting to work on that guy. Just keep your eyes on my broadcast news network, Roger, and we’ll get through this.

Karl: Wait a minute Rupert. It could be that Carville is playing the outside game, hoping Obama will do something so crazy and self-destructive that he decides himself to step aside, while some insiders quietly urge Obama to be a one-termer. Never forget that Carville’s loyalties are still with the Clintons. I’m not so sure our agent Matalin can be relied upon. I’ve always suspected she might be a double.

Voice From the Ether by Ouija Board: Hey, y’all. I’m wondering whose bright idea it was to have the Administration cancel the new EPA greenhouse gas rules this week? I know you wanted to stomp on Al Gore’s global warming telethon, but wasn’t canceling the ozone regs a couple weeks ago enough to get the enviros all demoralized? (Now where’d I put my Gibson blues guitar??)

Karl: I think Charles and David ordered this.

Rush: No, no it was me! Think of the sheer entertainment value if Gore suits up and comes out of retirement to challenge Obama. I’ll have to go to four hours a day on the air to keep up. I keep hearing that Obama may be depressed, just like Jimmy at Camp David in July 1979–he barely avoided a complete nervous breakdown. Gore is my insurance policy in case Obama is about to crack. Seeing Al-the-Mortician-Gore in his rearview mirror would bring him back up to a 9.5 on the Couric Perkiness Scale overnight. We really need him to hang on, like Jimmy in 1980. That was a close shave with Kennedy—too close. I’m seeing real danger signs here, folks. When Obama starts saying, “If you love me—. . .”

"We've got better vision. We've got better ideas. We've got real plans. And we've got better hair."Flashback to 2004. Remember when John Kerry said that... about himself and John Edwards? I wonder what the best hair combination is among the current group of Republicans... and if Obama ought to oust Biden and go with Hillary for a hair upgrade.Radiating all the vigour and enthusiasm Kerry had surgically removed at birth, the honey-toned Edwards found himself adored by the media for his "two Americas" stump speech, a Disraelian portrait of Dickensian gloom conjured in the tones of a Depression-era sob-sister.Ha ha. I came up with a Mark Steyn column when I Googled for what I was looking for:Even if you have never heard it, you know how it goes: there's one America where Dick Cheney's oil buddies are swigging down Martinis and toasting their war profits; but there's another America where "tonight a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm".Oh, what a huckster that John Edwards was!

I embarked on that Google search as I was writing the previous post, disapproving of reasoning/arguing with empathetic anecdotes. I thought it might help you, as you steel yourself against the political rhetoric that comes in the form of anecdotes, to remember that disgraced prettyboy John Edwards and his 2-Americas mascot, the (nonexistent) coatless little girl.

I've been writing about the shortcomings of the human imagination as we get hung up on one thing — such as a person in the room pleading with us — and neglect to think about all the people who aren't here in our presence. But when politicians use anecdotes, they merely paint a picture for us to see in our minds, and the thing that we fail to see may be more real in the world than what's painted in that picture, such as Edwards's nonexistent coatless little girl.

There must be a little girl, you were supposed to think, because her story is specific. She's 10-years-old and I see her there, kneeling by the side of the bed, and it's a cold night.

You can see it — the unseeable nonentity — in your imagination. The anecdote-purveyor clogs up your head with phony pictures. Fight the fake little 10-year old that the ultra-fake politician would use to gum up the imaginative mechanisms of your mind. Feel the oiliness of the fakery as it lubricates those mechanisms, and visualize the things they'd prefer to be left unseen.

You know, neither Winding down or CM answered my questions, which is really the point. Conservatives like to call people names and point fingers, but they no longer actually care about economics, and by extension, everyone in the country except the rich.

It sounds to me like the Bush administration cynically claimed to be supporting (actually just considering for four years) renewable energy and then at the last moment said "ha ha".

Besides the cost issues I mentioned, we know that there is a finite supply of fossil fuels, and there is reason to suspect that it will get more expensive to extract fossil fuels as our breakneck consumption of them goes on. Yet conservatives a) resist efforts at conservation by doing things such as opposing switching to more efficient light bulbs and giving lawyers and doctors free SUV's a few years back and b) have no plan to deal with higher priced and ultimately depleted fossil fuels. Oh wait, the plan is on the same shelf as the Republican plan for dealing with health care if they repeal the ACA ... in Candyland.

Agreed we are consuming ..finite amount..It will be gone someday....so were whale oil and buggy whips...free markets will sort it out ....not some govt entity....LIFE WILL CHANGE?.. maybe .....return to solitary, nasty, brutish and short....enjoy the ride...its a great time to rise out of the mud... for a short period. Stop the hand wringing...bloom where you grow.....enuf said

Below from google..."fossil fuel reserves"

Geologists and engineers illustrate the rise, peak and decline of oil. Oil companies and governments draw a rising graph, not showing peak or decline. Contemporary geological knowledge, backdated reserve figures and accurate production histories generate convincing evidence suggesting that the peak of all liquid hydrocarbons comes around 2010.

Economic development and prosperity over the past century has been built on cheap and abundant oil-based energy. After the production peak, as supplies decline and prices rise, (with rising populations and continued industrial development the demand for oil will continue to increase ) the world will have to use less fossil fuel or find alternate sources of energy. Possible choices include gas, non-conventional oil and gas, nuclear power, hydro-electricity, wind, tide, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydrogen and over unity energy sources. None of the known alternatives will be as cheap, convenient or as energy rich as oil.

Winding down, you appear to simply repeat the words of others. In doing so, you demonstrate that you do not care to actually respond to posts or answer other commenters. Although it is funny, your piece from Google basically backs up what I said about rising prices and the value of conservation. Meanwhile, your suggestion that fossil fuel use is like "whale oil and buggy whips" shows that you don't understand what you are talking about. Of course horses and whales are still around, they never "ran out"; they are simply not efficient technologies.

So you agree that oil, coal and natural gas are finite, although you think that the free market will somehow handle the transition. Yet you mock green energy technology. And apparently you don't understand a) the public health costs of burning fossil fuels or b) the market distorting effect of subsidies to oil, coal and natural gas companies.

I do not disagree with most of your last post...except the personal stuff...I don't mock and I do understand..... coal, nat gas and oil as sources of energy produce pollution...that effects the environment...ok so far?? My point is.. more efficient, less noxious sources of energy will develop.....but not because politicians try to pick wired supporters to achieve that goal. The free market has a history of rewarding innovation and risk taking....I oppose crony capitalism...Solyndra, for example. Who knows what is next.....I support greater reliance on nuclear power...but what ever comes along it will probably take a bigger chunk of our income.

Winding down, you repeat quotes that mock green energy, and you certainly mock the stimulus. You are responsible for the quotes you choose to repeat. What would have happened if the stimulus hadn't been passed? If the Republicans had succeeded in passing only tax cuts for the rich and for business as they wanted to do?

As for the effect of burning coal, oil and natural gas, you just won't go all the way, will you. Yes, burning fossil fuels harms "the environment". What is in "the environment"? Well, besides way too many greenhouse gases, there are also people. People with respiratory issues suffer the most, but everyone suffers some. And the Republicans want to do away with the EPA and all environmental regulations. How exactly does the market handle the cost of people's illness and death now?

You don't like crony capitalism, yet you apparently have no objection to the billions per year given to oil and other energy companies in subsidies. As far as I know solar and wind power don't make greenhouse gases worse, and/or make respiratory problems worse. As long as the Republicans block efforts to end subsidies and/or make oil/coal/natural gas companies pay for the public health problems they exacerbate, then there will be little incentive to shift off fossil fuels, particularly oil. You do realize there are oil inputs all through products in our society. A sudden market driven rise in oil will have a negative affect on all the people's food, clothing and other prices. But you have no concern for the social and economic effects of sudden prices shocks, because people who are poor deserve to b made poorer.

Duke, as opposed to, say, a scale of different levels of effect. Seriously, if you want to find some glib put down of my arguments, you will have to put more effort into it. If you want to be seen as an adult.